Container Vegetable Garden - Update

26th June 2008

Container Vegetable Garden - Update

posted in gardening |

The plants are (mostly) thriving! I took these pictures several days ago, and they’re already outdated!

vegetable garden

The first two plants (left) are my tomatoes. They both have had little flowers but no tomatoes yet… The left one looks kind of sickly compared to the right one, and I’m beginning to think that those two may benefit from larger pots. Next is the cucumber, which has grown even more and now has tons of yellow flowers! Today I saw bees buzzing around it so hopefully there was some pollination going on.

The far right is my zucchini plant. It’s doing great! It has several little zucchinis and one of them is ready to be picked any day now.

zucchini

I actually had a dream about it last night… that I picked it, and then I wanted to taste it, but it was so good (and smallish) that I ended up eating the whole thing… nothing left for the husband, and I felt kind of guilty about that. haha.

vegetable garden

On the left here are the two peppers… a bell pepper and a banana pepper. They’re not doing so hot. The guy thinks maybe we’re overwatering them… In the corner is the Japanese eggplant, which is doing pretty well! It’s grown a lot and has a lot of flowers on it, and one little eggplant!

eggplant

The main problem with it (and the cucumber and zucchini) is that it seems to be watered more than once a day because it uses the water/it’s so hot out. The whole plant visibly wilts in the meantime… which I know is not a good sign.

Does anyone have any experience with these plant watering balls or other tank systems with outdoor plants? I know they’re supposed to work well with houseplants, but I think I’d need a huge one for these outdoor plants, with how hot the Mississippi summer is!

We also got 4 long planters from my mother-in-law, and planted green beans in them! They just sprouted a couple days ago, and look like they’re doing okay, as far as little tiny seedlings go. I hope they grow and produce a lot of beans! Mmm.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 12:09 pm and is filed under gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On June 27th, 2008, yayanana said:

Bigger pots will hold more water. Also, If you sink the pots into the ground, they won’t dry out as fast either. Sink your pots in big planters(like mine) or big pots - or heck - trash bags or a child’s wading pool - filled with wet cedar mulch will reduce evaporation and the plants will pull water up through the holes in the bottom of the pot. Just don’t have the water level as high as the top of the plant.
It isn’t unusual for pot plants to need watering twice a day and your’s look like they’re doing well.

posted on June 27th, 2008 at 4:54 am

2 On June 27th, 2008, yayanana said:

I didn’t mean the top of the plant…don’t have the water level as high as the top of the plant’s pot.

posted on June 27th, 2008 at 4:55 am

3 On June 27th, 2008, Hadley said:

I am so jealous of your yummy looking zucchini! This is our first summer in our house, and we don’t have enough sun to have a garden! I might try some pots next year.

I swear by drip irrigation systems. You can get the stuff at Lowe’s I think. I got mine from a local irrigation company. It is simple to set up, and we hooked ours to a timer.

posted on June 27th, 2008 at 9:58 am

4 On June 27th, 2008, cheryl said:

Wow, your growing season is well ahead of mine. I also swear by drip systems - we have several thousand drippers and 10 zones on our system, but started out small many years ago. I like it for the pots because it will reliably water them twice a day. And the bigger the pot, the better. I use whiskey barrels for some of my tomatoes. The summer squash is blooming so soon we’ll both be having it coming out of our ears.

posted on June 27th, 2008 at 11:58 am

5 On June 30th, 2008, Sonya said:

Not sure if you’re a wine drinker or not, but I’ve found that a wine bottle filled with water and inverted into the soil waters my containers more slowly and for a longer duration. The water doesn’t seem to come out the bottom when I water this way. I poked the top of the wine bottle into the soil first, before filling and inverting. Also, I threw a 1-2 in cover of cedar mulch on top of the soil to help prevent some moisture loss on each plant.

I was looking into some of those waterballs, but they would have cost me over $100 for all my containers. This free and green method works well for me (plus, it’s a good excuse to drink more wine).

posted on June 30th, 2008 at 12:46 pm